Is it possible to reprogram the serial bridge firmware (STM32-F103xx) on the BlueNRG-LP if the serial communication is no longer working?

[JWill.8]

I was not able to find the answer to this in the QA/Knowledge Base.

I understand ST documentation says not to mess with the STM32-F103xx as it comes pre-programmed from the factory. However I have a board whose serial communications between the host PC are broken, but appears to be otherwise functioning. Thus I can neither communicate with nor re-flash the board over the serial interface (little more than a brick).

I posted an earlier question under BLEMesh (possibly the wrong posted area) entitled "My (new) BlueNRG-LP STEVAL-IBD011V2 evaluation board is no longer recognized by MS-Windows Device manager when I plug into the USB port. How can I recover this functionality?"

However this is a different question (albeit tangentially related), so I wanted to keep the questions separate.

My thinking is if I can rewrite serial bridge I/O firmware loaded at the factory, perhaps I can recover the board serial communications with the host PC.

[Peter BENSCH]

I don't currently have a STEVAL-IBD011V2 at hand to verify this, but I do recall that you can access the included ST-LINK with the ST-Link Utility (STSW-LINK004, NRND, but still functional for older devices) or the STM32CubeProgr. If this is the case, you should also be able to flash or re-flash the firmware with one of them. Could you please give it a try?

Good luck!

Regards

/Peter

[Sebastien DENOUAL]

Hi @JWill.8​ ,

Yes : I confirm STM32 FW (from STEVAL--IDB011V2) can be updated.

Attached is the procedure. This doc is extracted from BleuNRG-GUI documentation.

PC GUI can be download and installed here : STSW-BNRGUI

FW are also included in this PC GUI.

Regards,

Sebastien.

[JWill.8]

Thank you, Peter and Sebastien. I will look at both approaches the two of you have posted and see what shakes out. I will let the two of you know once I have the results...

[JWill.8]

Sebastien, Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately for me, when the BlueNRG-LP is plugged into the host computer, the device is not recognized. So neither Maintenance nor STEVAL-IBD011V2 devices show up as far as Windows 10 is concerned. Therefore the steps in the document you supplied, cannot be performed because the device never materializes from the perspective of the Windows 10 OS when it is plugged in. The Windows 10 Device Manager reports that the "Device Descriptor Request Failed".

[Sebastien DENOUAL · Accepted solution]

Hi @JWill.8​ ,

In this case.. afraid that something went wrong with your boards...

This is a standard MassStorage profile...

Are all jumpers on STEVAL well placed (compared to your functional board ? )

Especially JP6JP2 ?

Regards,

Sebastien.

Note : Edited message because of typo; Was not JP6 but indeed JP2. My mistake

[JWill.8]

Hi Sebastien,

I have JP1 thru JP5 (not entirely sure where JP6 is on this board) JP2 is set to USB. All other jumpers (JP1, JP3, JP4, and JP5) are set identically to the working board (and as shipped)

[JWill.8]

Hi Peter, Thanks for the suggestion.

So far I have not had any luck getting these utilities to recognize my board (UART or SWD). Perhaps there was electrostatic damage sone to the board which affected the serial bridge I/O circuitry... Still trying though...